FIRE EYES

A Documentary Film by Soraya Mire

Presented at the Fourth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations,
University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 9-11, 1996.

Fire Eyes confronts the true nature of female genital mutilation
and explodes the myths surrounding this taboo topic. The procedure is
most often performed by midwives with unsterilized tools. Anesthesia is
a luxury only for the urban and wealthy. Myriad medical complications
and psychological traumas beset the circumcised woman for the rest of
her life. This film sheds much needed light on the socio-economic, psychological
and medical consequences of a custom that victimizes more than 100 million
women worldwide.

Soraya Mire is a film maker who has revealed her own trauma and healed
her own wounds by making an educational documentary on female genital
mutilation, Fire Eyes. On a shoestring budget and sacrificing her
privacy, Soraya willingly undertook a film project with the hope of educating
others and protecting infants and children from the fate she herself endured.
She did this with love in her heart and healing as he goal, and she succeeded
- gloriously.